I’m sick of running though. I’m sick and tired of letting this fear consume my life.
November 20, 1999
Teddy and I got into a huge fight tonight. He wants me to see someone. I’ve become more and more depressed lately. To the point where I don’t even want to get out of bed. I know he’s concerned but a therapist isn’t going to help me through this. I’m not sure what will, but talking about it is the last thing I want to do.
All I want to do is forget.
So I told him I would write it down instead. Maybe if I tell my secrets to these blank pages it will help eliminate some of the constant pressure in my chest.
When I was sixteen I ran away from home. My father was sexually abusive. It went on for several years before I finally found the courage to tell my mother, who didn’t believe me. She called me a liar, a slut, and told me if he was abusing me it was all my fault. That I enticed him. Me, a thirteen-year-old girl, enticing a grown man.
I was devastated, broken, and utterly distraught.
The abuse continued and got worse after he found out I’d told, so one night, I stuffed everything I could in a backpack and ran.
My friend, Teddy, lived next door with his parents and was three years older than me. He was the only friend I really had. The only person I trusted. He knew what was happening and he’d wanted to step in several times, even threatening to call the authorities, but I knew if he did they would send me away.
He had a job lined up in California, so the night I ran, he took me with him. I dyed my hair, changed my name, got a job waitressing, and started taking night classes to get my GED.
Then, two years later, my life drastically changed again. I’d earned my GED and enrolled in night classes at the community college but the waitress job wasn’t cutting it anymore to pay for my tuition, and I refused to let Teddy pay, even though his job as a diesel mechanic paid more than enough. I wanted to make it on my own. It was important to me.
I quit my job waitressing and started working at a nightclub called Santana. It was a high-end nightclub where a lot of politicians and rich people spent their time. My income tripled and I was finally able to afford a place of my own. Teddy begged me not to leave. I knew he had feelings for me but I didn’t reciprocate at the time. He was more like an older brother than a lover, but he was also all I had in the world so I didn’t move far, the next building over from his in our apartment complex actually, but I was doing it all on my own and that’s what mattered to me the most.
One night, after my shift, I was walking to my car when a dark figure appeared, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a dirty cell in Mexico with several other women. I stayed there for days or weeks, I still don’t know. We were given minimal food and water until a man came to prepare us for sale. Cesar just so happened to be visiting my captor that day, and when he saw me, he wanted me as his own. According to him, he paid a pretty high price for me, too. He never let me forget that.
I was taken to his home where he trained me to be his sex slave. After a while, it became second nature. It was what I had to do in order to survive. I was terrified beyond belief but Cesar gave me shelter and food and sometimes, even mercy. Though, those moments were few and far between. I stayed there for five years before I finally summoned the courage to escape through one of Cesar’s elaborate tunnels.
I just wish I could forget that night altogether. The night his brother raped me. It burns in my mind like a hot iron against my skin, branding me over and over and over again.
His hands tearing at my dress.
His palm wrapped tight around my throat.
His alcohol-soaked breath fanning my face.
I long to forget it all but I can’t. I don’t know how.
Cesar had left me no choice in my servitude, so I’d submitted to his needs and desires rather quickly in order to avoid punishment. It was what I had to do in order to survive.
But what Carlito did was far worse.
He stripped me of more than my free will.
He robbed me of the capacity to compartmentalize. After that night, I knew I had to escape.
Even though that was the worst day of my life, she was the beautiful consequence. I have never regretted keeping her, and I never will. For all intents and purposes, Teddy is her father and will always be. He adores her and would lay down his life for her if it meant keeping her safe. Sometimes I catch him holding her, gazing down at her with such immense pride it makes my heart clench in my chest. I love him so very much but I have no idea how to open up to him. To let him in. I’m so scared that once I do he won’t want all the broken pieces he finds. Or what’s even scarier, he won’t have a clue how to put me back together. She’s the only sure thing I have in my life. The only reason I am able to get out of bed each and every day. The only reason I want to fight.
Pain grips my heart like an unforgiving vice. I read her words once more, letting them sink in.
My uncle is my father.
He raped my mother.
My body trembles as the notebook falls from my hands to the floor. Throwing open the door, I rush down the porch steps, emptying my stomach into the bushes.
“Oh God, no.” I heave.
How could my mother ever look at me with any kind of love after that? No wonder she slipped into a depression. It must have been the worst feeling in the world, looking at me and being reminded of that night every day of her life.
